DevWrite

A technical blog application built with Elixir, Phoenix LiveView, and PostgreSQL.

Stack

Layer	Technology
Language	Elixir 1.19+ / Erlang OTP 28
Web framework	Phoenix 1.8
Real-time UI	Phoenix LiveView
Database	PostgreSQL 16 (Docker)
ORM	Ecto
CSS	Tailwind CSS v4
Icons	Heroicons v2
HTTP server	Bandit

Project layout

soliloquy/
└── blog/        # The Phoenix application

Prerequisites

• Elixir ≥ 1.16 — install guide
• Node.js ≥ 18
• Docker + Docker Compose

Getting started

1. Start the database

cd blog
docker compose up -d

The PostgreSQL container runs on host port 5433 (the host's native PostgreSQL on 5432 is left untouched).

2. Install dependencies and set up the database

mix setup

This single command runs mix deps.get, creates the database, runs migrations, seeds it, and compiles the frontend assets.

3. Start the development server

mix phx.server

Visit http://localhost:4000.

Useful commands

Command	What it does
mix phx.server	Start the dev server with hot reload
mix ecto.migrate	Run pending database migrations
mix ecto.reset	Drop and recreate the database from scratch
mix test	Run the test suite
mix precommit	Compile, format, and test — run before every commit
docker compose down	Stop the PostgreSQL container

Configuration

File	Purpose
config/dev.exs	Local development settings
config/test.exs	Test environment settings
config/runtime.exs	Production settings (reads environment variables)

In production the app expects the following environment variables:

• DATABASE_URL — full Ecto-style database URL (ecto://user:pass@host/db)
• SECRET_KEY_BASE — generated with mix phx.gen.secret
• PHX_HOST — the public hostname (e.g. myapp.fly.dev)
• PORT — HTTP port (default 4000)
• POOL_SIZE — database connection pool size (default 10)
• ECTO_IPV6 — set to true to force IPv6 connections